At the begining she was indeed faking it, but i do believe she is now in love with her. She might not consider herself "in love" in the romantic sense because of the historical time the story is placed in, but she is. I remember the chapter where she lets Cheong sleep inside her bed and when Cheong is asleep Madam takes her hands and kisses them with tenderness and says that she´s sorry to have dragged her into that mess, that if she would have known she would care for her, she would have never done it.
To me, Madam not only loves Cheong by now, but is also in love with her. She gets all rosy cheeks when they touch too much and they have developed such deep connection.
I remember that. That's when I believed that it became real. That's probably why she didn't tell cheong everything or did she tell her everything I can't remember.
I knew she was pretending that was easy to tell. But I believe that she did start actually caring about cheong at some point and I won't say in love but maybe mistress was starting to feel stuff.
Now we got her damn brother coming out and making her do all this just so he can take over or whatever. Hell Idk what his goal is .But the fact that he is keeping her under his thumb like that and her letting it happen is messed up. I let it go in the past but i can't.Mistress needs to fight back.
I don't care if he is her brother.He is making her do something that is probably bad and that she wants nothing to do with.Its taking effect on her and not in a good way.she is locked up and she needs to free herself.Tell cheong the truth and I mean all of it.